Aug 19 2008
I’m moderating and speaking on a panel today at Search Engine Strategies. Topic (of course) is Shopping Search. Greg Hintz, Brian Mark, and Aaron Shear of Boost Search Marketing are joining me. Here’s my 1-page presentation.
Shopping Search Strategies - Upload a Document to Scribd
Read this document on Scribd: Shopping Search Strategies
Aug 18 2008
To kick off our series on holiday SEO tips for online retailers, here’s a tip for retailers who offer free shipping on one or more products during the holidays. (My apologies to those who don’t offer free shipping, but bookmark this anyway - you may offer it down the road!)
Free shipping offers consistently top surveys of what customers want from online stores. And people do search for “free shipping,” and most often in November / December - as you would expect.
Now I’m not saying you have a hope in the North Pole of ranking for “free shipping” alone (though Amazon, Zappos, Shoes.com and Shoebuy have succeeded). The point is people really care about free shipping, even to search for it in search engines. And if you offer it, you should flaunt it when customers do searches for the products you carry — in your title tags […]
Aug 16 2008
As Barry Schwartz over at SEORoundtable pointed out last week, Google seems to be moving around product search results on Google.com. I’ve noticed this more and more over the last week.
Here’s a search for ‘red sweater’:
I hope this is just a test. I find this extremely confusing compared to the normal OneBox placement at the top of the search engine results page:
Aug 15 2008
Every fall there are a ton of conferences that benefit online retailers and we want to help get you there! There are some perks that come along with being the #1 ecommerce blog in the world and we want to pass them on to you, our loyal readers.
Win FULL conferences passes to these events + Bonus prize
Event: Shop.org Annual Summit 2008
Prize: 1 Free Full conference pass
Date: Sep 15-17, Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Value: $1,725
Agenda | Register
* Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software is speaking at this event
Event: Online Market World
Prize: 2 Free Full conference passes
Date: Oct 1-3, Moscone West Convention Center, San Francisco, CA
Value: $650 x 2 = $1300
Agenda | Register + 20% discount (applied at end)
* Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software is speaking at this event
Event: Search Marketing Expo (SMX East)
Prize: 1 Free Full conference pass
Date: Oct 6-8, Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York […]
Aug 15 2008
If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
Just a heads up, Jason and I will be away next week at Search Engine Strategies San Jose. But never fear, we’ll still be cranking out content for you every day. To run with the search engine theme, we’ll have a 4 part series next week on holiday SEO for online retailers. So stay tuned.
We love Google Analytics hacks, and Allaedin Ezzedin from E-nor.com posted a great tutorial on how to track user interaction with forms. Via Web Analytics World.
Rand Fishkin shares a link building a-ha moment: buy misspellings of your domain and redirect them to your site. If anyone links to you with the wrong spelling, you still get the link […]
Aug 14 2008
This is a recap of Elastic Path Software and FitForCommerce’s web seminar The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology. The on-demand version is now available along with a downloadable mp4 version (video iPod compatible) in our webinar archive.
Disclaimer The participation by FitForCommerce or Bernardine Wu is not meant as an endorsement of Elastic Path and/or its products and services. FitForCommerce received no payment, sponsorship, or other consideration for this webinar.
eCommerce Diligence - Ten Steps to Choose an eCommerce Technology
Requirements Diligence
Knowing what want and what you need
Clarify business, operational and organizational drivers
Conduct competitive and best practice analysis
Document your starting point
Determine and prioritize your requirements
Selection Diligence
Knowing what’s out there so you can make the best decision for you
Decide on the best solution model/type
Create a long list of 5-10 providers
Send an RFP and review responses
Narrow down to a short list
Final Diligence
Negotiate with finalists […]
Aug 13 2008
A while back I blogged about a Webinar I attended presented by Lauren Freedman of The Etailing Group and Power Reviews in which Power Reviews’ Jay Schaffer provided some tips and examples from retailers on how to ask for customer reviews post-purchase.
I was recently forwarded this email from Amazon calling for customer reviews - not just textual, but customer photo and video reviews.
Dear {customer},
Thank you for your recent purchase from Amazon.com.
We invite you to submit a review for the product you purchased or share an image that would benefit other customers. Your input will help customers choose the best products on Amazon.com.
It’s easy to submit a review–just click the Review this product button next to the product.
Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black) (Purchased on 06/03/2008)
by Pure Digital
…or share an image.
New on Amazon! Grab your video camera or webcam and add video to your customer review. Click on ‘Review […]
Aug 12 2008
SeenON! is an interactive entertainment-slash-ecommerce site that helps TV buffs buy what they see on their favorite television shows. One feature of the site is called “Shopisodes”, which are short clips from TV programs that link to online retailers that carry the items in the episode. (Click below to play - note, some RSS readers are not displaying the video, you’ll need to click through to the actual post)
Bluefly’s Flypaper blog uses a similar approach in its video podcast. At any point in the vignette, you can click the “Click to Buy” button and it will show a list of items appearing in the video. Click on any thumbnail and you see the product’s description, price and a Buy Now button. Or you can go back to watch the rest of the video. (Don’t click, these are just screenshots)
This is awesome.
Does anyone know of […]
Aug 09 2008
A quick search on Yahoo Answers shows how often people ask “Are {branded clothing items} true to size?” Often these queries are for top retailers like Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle and Banana Republic.
Why must customers turn to social networks and forums like Yahoo Answers? Because the sizing charts on these web sites don’t answer these questions well enough.
Tools like Shoeline’s Return-o-meter and Bazaarvoice’s Ask & Answer product can help you communicate this, as can ratings and reviews. But if you survey your customers post-purchase, or have “fit testers” try on your clothes, you could report a statistic “X% of customers describe this brand as true-to-size” and report this close to the sizing information.
The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology
Free Webinar: August 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
Register to Attend…
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Using Product Images to Reduce […]
Aug 08 2008
If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
It’s 8/8/08 and I thought it would be fitting to have 8 links this week:
Avinash Kaushik has an incredibly detailed post on
how to use Google Trends for competitive intelligence. Bookmark this.
We hate it when you waste money on PPC, and so does George Michie from the Rimm Kaufman Group. He reminds us that average PPC ROI can hide diminishing returns at higher ad spend levels. High level stuff. Of course, to complicate things, an astute commenter pointed out that life-time value of a customer can off-set the high cost of PPC.
How “free” is your shipping? Maxim Mironov from Optimalogica shares 4 common errors in budgeting for shipping, and how […]